SPRINGFIELD — With two weeks until the legislative session ends, time is ticking on the state’s latest gambling expansion plan.

Rep. Bob Rita, D-Blue Island, is sponsoring in the House a bill containing two options for expansion. The first calls for a large land-based casino in Chicago that could potentially be the biggest casino in the world.

The other option calls for a smaller land-based casino in Chicago, with additional riverboat locations in southern Cook, Lake, Winnebago and Vermilion counties.

Rita said Friday that Senate Bill 1739, which passed the Senate 32-20 on May 1, is in a good position to move quickly, but a few issues need to be addressed before it sees a House vote.

One issue Rita said needs to get worked out is how local governments divvy up proceeds from slot machines at the Fairmount Park horse racing track in Collinsville.

Earlier versions of the planned expansion did not include allowing slots at Fairmount Park over industry concerns that the Metro East area was already too saturated with gaming opportunities.

But an amendment filed May 9 by Rep. Jay Hoffman, D-Belleville, adds the Fairmount Park track to the bill. A Thursday filing from Republican Rep. Dwight Kay of Glen Carbon outlines how the revenue earned from those new slots there would be divided among the cities of Collinsville, Alton and East St. Louis.

A third amendment, filed early last month by Rep. Edward Acevedo, D-Chicago, would give security duties and investigative authority to the Chicago Police Department if a casino is built there.

Rita said he’s concerned that the filing of so many localized amendments signaled unwillingness among state and local lawmakers to reach an agreement.

“That’s telling me they’re not trying to come up with a compromise that works for everyone,” he said. “The message has been all along, go work out an issue” because amendments won’t solve the problems.

More than Las Vegas?

The hold-up could be good news for Tom Swoik, executive director of the Illinois Casino Gaming Association, who said the association is “opposed to slots at racetracks because they’re so close to casinos.”

He said riverboat casino revenue in the state has dropped 40 percent since 2007, and with the rise of video gaming in Illinois, the outlook has worsened.

More than 16,000 video gaming terminals have become operational since the state passed legislation allowing video gambling, causing the total number of gaming positions statewide to more than double.

“If one of these (expansion) bills passes, we’ll have more gaming positions than the Las Vegas strip. Each time one of these bills comes out, it’s just so big,” Swoik said.

Page 2 of 3 - He said the only way the association would support any type of expansion would be if plans were scaled back to include only parts of the state that don’t already have riverboats or racetracks nearby.

‘Running on fumes’

The House hold-up is not welcome news for Tony Somone, executive director of the Illinois Harness Horsemen’s Association. He said the racing industry is “running on fumes” and predicted that if no action is taken this spring, harness racing would be “in serious jeopardy” by next summer.

“We’ve got our team still trying to push this and get this thing called for this session,” Somone said.

“We’d like to think that as far as horsemen go, we are teed up and ready to go,” he said. “We support Fairmount Park and hope that situation gets resolved. We need them to be a part of (expansion).”

Somone said another obstacle is Gov. Pat Quinn, a tough critic of gambling expansion who has rejected two previous plans in as many years, citing a lack of ethical oversight.

“I don’t know what needs to happen (in order to pass the bill). It’s a good piece of legislation, especially with these ethical controls in there and regulatory controls in there,” Somone said. “It needs to get called. I’m confident if it gets called, it’ll pass.”

Quinn last year said that before he would consider signing a gaming bill into law, the state needed to fix its pensions. But a Wednesday court ruling holding off implementation of pension reforms could open the door for Quinn not to give his blessing to this latest effort.

“The governor, in my opinion, probably knew that would happen,” Somone said of the court ruling. “I can’t imagine that would be a surprise.”

Not much time

Getting support from the governor is key, Rita said, noting that the latest plan addresses each of Quinn’s concerns expressed in his two previous veto messages. But getting a read on whether he’s supportive has been challenging.

“It’s not about just passing a bill and putting it on the governor’s desk for him to veto,” Rita said. “It’s about passing a bill that’s going to be signed.”

“The only comment that I’ve heard publicly was that (Quinn) liked the direction we were going,” he said, adding that the comment came early last month, and he hasn’t heard anything since.

Page 3 of 3 - Support from legislative leadership is also critical. Rita said it’s important the proposal’s issues get resolved because that’s how House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, will judge whether to call the bill for a vote.

“Right now we got some time to do this, but time is of the essence,” he said.

A House committee could vote on the latest round of amendments and send the bill to the floor as early as today (Monday).